English with Mrs. Lamp

Out with the Old, In with the New: Realigning Your AP Lit Course

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A few years ago, the College Board rolled out new “big ideas” and “enduring understandings” that now serve as the core content and skills for the AP Literature and Composition curriculum and exam.

In the old days, many of us organized our units around genres and time periods, or some other method. However, what the AP Lit gurus at College Board want now is for us to take a conceptual approach centered around six big ideas:

• Character
• Setting
• Structure
• Narration
• Figurative Language
• Literary Argumentation

I’m sure you remember re-writing your course guide, submitting it, and maybe having to do that a few times before you “got” what they wanted. It was a lot of work! And a whole new way of thinking about the course.

Within each big idea, they have specific enduring understandings that go deeper into the conceptual focus. For example, the Character big idea has the enduring understanding that “Characters allow readers to study and explore a range of values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms.”

This fundamental restructuring represents a pretty big shift in the way we think about our AP Lit. class. It’s a good idea to rebuild some parts of our course to reflect these big ideas and skills, ESPECIALLY if you want to use the resources and practice materials over on AP Central!

That’s an overwhelming prospect on top of our already super busy schedules. Between staying caught up on the year’s readings, assigning and grading essays, prepping students for the AP exam, and everything else going on in our lives (wait, we have time for personal lives?), most of us simply don’t have the time to give our handouts, activities, and course structure a massive overhaul in order to align everything to this new course framework.

So, I want to share one thing I did that helped me move toward the “Big Ideas, Enduring Understandings” framework in a big way. I updated my old “AP Lit Terms & Tools” handout packet, rearranging things and adding 10 new pages to make sure I was covering everything the College Board suggests we cover. (I spent a lot of time with their COURSE AND EXAM DESCRIPTION online booklet. I mean a LOT of time. But I think it was worth it!)

After finally fully digesting the new course requirements last summer (I know, it’s 2024, and they put this out in 2020. Like I said, we teachers are busy!), I worked and worked on creating a comprehensive, 31-page reference packet of vocabulary terms, definitions, examples, and other classroom resources explicitly organized around the new AP Literature big ideas and enduring understandings. I was obsessed. My neck even hurt most nights from how obsessively I was tied to my computer screen!

Want my packet?

If you want to do this yourself, this is what I ended up putting together for my students:

• Big lists of literary terms sorted by skill strand (Character, Setting, etc.) with definitions and notes on how to use these terms to analyze literature, what the function of the lit devices actually is or why authors/poets would choose to use a certain device (what effects it has), & a breakdown of what goes into each skill strand (lists of lit terms)
• Detailed guides for understanding structural devices in prose and poetry
• Glossaries of poetic forms, sound devices, figurative language terms, literary devices, and rhetorical devices
• Handouts for how to analyze rhythm and meter
• A conflicts glossary covering types, definitions, and major functions
• Handouts for understanding narration techniques and points of view
• Tone resources like a tone wheel and tone and mood words lists

With the big packet I made to use with my kids, everything is neatly organized, tailored to each big idea, and formatted for easy classroom distribution and reference. Now, I can just print and go!

From what I’ve seen in my classroom, these resources helps get my students actively learning and applying new literary terms and course concepts from day one. When we study a novel, poem, or play, we relentlessly circle back to the new AP Literature framing of “big ideas” and how various terms and techniques service those core content areas. The kids all have their “big packet” that we can refer to in class, study from, and use at home for help with assignments and essays.

My students develop true conceptual mastery with the help of their “big packet,” as we call it, and I don’t feel like I am just skimming the surface of literary analysis with them. We focus on WHAT the literary devices and authorial choices do, and HOW they do it. This is the genius of the tools I added to the packet: it isn’t just lists of words and definitions; it goes deep into the effects of these devices & choices, how these literary elements operate, and why authors use them. After studying this for a whole year, my students can walk into the AP exam poised and confident because we’ve been working on the exact same skills prioritized by College Board.

This year, I am putting a copy of these handouts up for fellow AP Lit teachers over at my TpT store. You can get it here! While it took me countless hours of work, it has become a vital resource in my classroom that ensures my students and I are fully prepared for the new way the College Board is organizing and conveying concepts. (Bonus: It matches up with the College Board’s content and units on AP Classroom, if you want to use some or all of those for lessons and/or practice!)

If you teach AP Lit but haven’t fully adapted to the “new way” yet, you should definitely start thinking about how you are going to start transitioning to College Board’s shiny new course framework. (And if you haven’t revamped your units/Course Guide, mine’s here, fully updated!)

What I love about my “big packet” of literary terms and tools is that each time I need a handout or a lit term guide to go along with one of the pillars of the new big idea paradigm, I just pull it out, have the kids pull it out, and send them to the right page.

You can make something like this too, from scratch if you want (you’ll learn a lot!). But if you don’t want to do all that, I’ve done the heavy lifting for you! Grab my packet here!

• More Great Vocabulary Resources:
  • AP QUIZLET (LITERARY TERMS)
  • 15 AP Lit Vocab Quizzes (goes with the Quizzlet)